About

It started with a spreadsheet

In 1996 the founder of Innovative Data Systems was teaching Excel to executives at Glade Springs Resort — the same course he had tested out of in college. That first job set the pattern for the next thirty years: take something technical, make it work for the people who actually have to use it, and stick around to make sure it keeps working.

The work grew from training into networks, from networks into servers and firewalls, and from there into the camera systems, access control, and custom software that public-safety agencies depend on today. Along the way IDS became an Ingram Micro authorized redistributor, a NinjaOne partner, an OpenText MXDR and penetration-testing partner, and a Microsoft 365 licensing provider — and started its own web hosting platform and the Remote Data Backups service.

Who we work for

Fire departments, EMS agencies, police departments and evidence centers, and the small and mid-sized businesses that keep a region running. Public safety is a specialty because those environments have rules — chain of custody, DEA compliance, 24/7 uptime — that most IT vendors have never had to design around. We have.

How we work

One point of contact who has done the work personally, from pulling cable in an apparatus bay to writing the OCR engine that reads the run reports. We design systems to be supportable after we leave, we document what we build, and you own the source code to anything we write for you. We are based in Beckley and travel when a job needs hands on site; a good portion of our customers are elsewhere in the United States and are supported remotely.

The short version

30 years of IT, security, and custom software for public safety and business.